Today the Chromecast is running much better. Much, much better. Last
Saturday I made a comment to a friend about Fry's selling a 55" TV for
$499. I said, "but who has ever heard of TCL?" Duh, turns out they are
one of the top 4 TV manufacturers in the world and have only recently
set up shop in the US. Of course the $499 deal was only good for last
Saturday... and again today.
I have all kinds of streaming devices around here and of course
mentioned I got a Chromecast the other day. I don't need a "smart TV".
BUT, most of the major manufacturers aren't making "dumb TVs" anymore.
And you pay extra for the "smartness". For those who don't know, a
"smart TV" comes with apps and wifi built in. Turns out the TCL was a
"dumb TV" but doing some research got good reviews.
So I just finished first assembling the stand I bought with it. The
stand was only $129 but I noticed that most all the sets at Frys were on
it and if they trust it then it is good enough for me. Then the TV was
assembled which consists of just attaching the stand that comes with
it. Then hoisting the thing on the main stand which will also house the
center speaker and BD players (I have two of them) plus the AV Receiver
(I have a surround system with Klipsch speakers).
Turned on the TV and switch to the Chromecast which came up
beautifully. Grabbed my Android phone and ran the Netflix app and
started a movie and clicked on the Chromecast button and viola! the
movie was on the TV and looks like the SuperHD feed too! Next the Hulu+
app will be added to the phone. Great stuff!
On 10/10/2013 04:09 PM, Bhairitu wrote:
Went out and got a Chromecast to play with. Now with my 13 year old
TV it is not going to work very well as the set doesn't support
1080p. But it did run in the messy display where about 4 screens are
overlaid but sorta readable. But Chromecast works! I can select
streams from my phone, tablet, desktops and laptops. So it is all set
up when I get the new set.
On 10/10/2013 09:29 AM, Bhairitu wrote:
I've watched a couple movies on HuluPlus with no commercials. Those
were "for rent" on Amazon and VUDU. The latter two use better
encoding as HuluPlus looks a bit like it was run through ffmpeg with
the fast conversion preset. I also watched this week's episode of
"Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D" on HuluPlus but it has commercials though no
more than one minute's worth per break which is tolerable.
Today the cable gets cut and the DVR back to Comcast. We pay way too
much for entertainment. I tried to keep my bill managed but some
folks pay over $200 a month. My broadband and phone is on another
service.
On 10/09/2013 03:49 PM, Richard J. Williams wrote:
Got it and thanks. Works for me!
On 10/9/2013 4:22 PM, Bhairitu wrote:
If you don't have HuluPlus and have PayPal there is a one month free
trial of HuluPlus if you sign up with your PayPal account. I was
surprised at the number of shows I figured that might have to
"rent" on
Amazon are actually available with the subscription.
http://dealnews.com/Hulu-Plus-1-Month-Trial-for-free-with-Pay-Pal/855642.html
